NASCAR’s history bears the weight of deep losses along with the celebratory moments and landmarks. The sport has also been scarred by on-track tragedies, most notably the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. Yet among the darkest ones are those written far from the speedways: Aviation accidents have claimed the lives of no fewer than nine prominent individuals connected to NASCAR.
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The most recent of those devastating tragedies happened on December 18, 2025, when Greg Biffle died alongside three members of his family in a plane crash while attempting to land at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina. The loss rippled quickly through the racing community.
Ken Schrader, who raced alongside Biffle on the NASCAR Cup Series grid between 2003 and 2006, spoke about the tragedy during a recent appearance on Kenny Wallace’s podcast. He struggled to put into words the scale of what had happened. “Well, Greg, his wife, two kids, and three others. We lost seven there. A plane wreck,” Schrader began.
“We’re lucky in our industry. When something like that happens, it’s huge. It’s not like a car wreck, which they have every day and kill people every day, but we fly so many hours a year. Our whole industry does that; we’ve had it happen before with Davey and Allen and the Hendrick plane. But it just hits home, man,” he continued.
NASCAR, Schrader noted, operates in a world where air travel is routine, almost taken for granted. Drivers, team members, and officials log countless hours in the air each year, moving from track to track to meet the sport’s demanding calendar.
While motorsports carries inherent risk, aviation tragedies strike a different nerve. Schrader acknowledged that when an entire family is lost in a single moment, the cause can feel irrelevant in the face of overwhelming grief.
He quickly clarified that the cause still matters and that investigators will ultimately determine what went wrong. Officials will examine every detail and reach conclusions in due time. Yet no explanation can undo the reality that one crash ended seven lives.
As the community continues to process the loss, additional details have emerged. Authorities recently released five emergency 911 calls placed moments after Biffle’s plane went down in North Carolina. Witnesses, including golfers and airport workers, described scenes filled with confusion and panic. Several recalled watching the aircraft disappear from view before flames erupted, indicating how fast the situation spiraled beyond control.
